by Melanie Holdstein
It all began with tiny little things.
The sound of him saying my name like he had all the time in the world. Like it was an honor for him to even speak the sound. The sound of him laughing a beat after everyone else, as if he was calculating the time. Like he was considering the worthiness of the humor. The look on his face when I would see him look at things like clouds, the cracks on the desks, half of the songs playing out of two different earbuds.
I told myself that it was nothing. Just another random thought. Just a kid sitting near me in class.
Feelings, you see, don’t require a password.
I slowly began getting to know him in pieces and fragments. The way he would tap his pencil against the desk when he thought, and the way he always stared out the window during announcements. The way he would pass you a pen from his pencil case, without even thinking twice about it, as though it were just another small, unconscious gesture of a man who thought nothing of being kind.
And what was the worst part was how easy it was for me to begin falling in love with him.
That was the issue. He simply was. And somehow that alone was enough for him to make an entire day.
I rehearsed conversations with him I never had. Imagined scenes and encounters that never even happened. I told myself I wouldn’t be thinking about him tomorrow.
And that tomorrow always resembled him in a million different ways.
He held the door open for me one afternoon. A simple thing, yes. But he held it for one extra second that he didn’t need to.
“Thanks,” I said.
He just nodded. A faint smile. One that suggested it didn’t matter.
But I spent my entire walk home thinking about that small nod. And later that night I knew one final and simple truth:
Not every man becomes a story.
Some just walk past, but they change you anyway.
Art by Rachelle Levingston, Utah County Arts Board, INC
About the Author
Melanie loves telling stories and spending time at the gym. She enjoys balancing imagination with discipline, whether she’s building characters on the page or building strength in her workouts.